Unruly Travelling Rants, thoughts, ideas, concerns, and other things from the world over. Central Europe right now.

Palin’s Back!

So a little while ago my favorite person in the whole of American politics, Sarah Palin, resigned as Governor of Alaska. Old news, right? Yeah, I know. I feel that I should have written something about it, made some snarky comments and such, but it just didn’t seem worht it.

After all, there are those ethics complaints, and the fact that she didn’t want to be a “lame duck” Governor because she had already decided that she was not going to seek re-election. Again, no news here. This is just me playing catch-up, and getting to my point in a meandering and belleagured fashion. It’s been a little while since I was last here, and I’ve got to shake the rust off.

So anyway, Palin resigned, citing various reasons (we all know it’s because she’s either gearing up for a Senate run or a Presidential run, possibly both, who knows with this crazy maverick of a hockey mom?) and then disappeared for like two weeks. Well, she made one appearance to talk about the 2nd Amendment, but that was like six days ago. Before she disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness to hunt bears and skinning them using only her teeth and nails she told her supporters that she would keep them updated via Twitter (I somehow think it’s appropriate that Twitter and Sarah Palin should be mentioned in the same sentence. In fact, I think Twitter and Palin should be grouped together more often than they are at the moment. I am digressing and amusing myself. Sorry.)

But see, she hasn’t been keeping them updated via Twitter or any other social networking sight. She’s been silent, which I suppose you have to be when you are hunting wolves from a helicopter. Oh wait…

But today, there was a message posted on her Facebook page, and it described Obama’s proposed healthcare package/reform/confusing as all hell thingamajig that’s causing so much trouble in American politics at the moment as “downright evil.”

“Who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.”

Now to be fair, this was a Facebook posting, which means that there is no guarantee Palin actually wrote it. It could have been anyone with access to her account–didn’t she have some emails hacked or something a while ago?–or it could have been her cat. Like the guy who blamed his cat the child porn on his computer. The point is there is a myriad of possibilities as to how the post got on her Facebook page.

Personally, I think that she did write the post herself. After all, it has all of her catch-phrases:

* The America I know

*Obama’s death panel

*His bureaucrats standing in the way

*point no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens

And of course

*my baby with Down Syndrome.

I mean, it just wouldn’t be a communication for Sarah Palin if it did not reference at least one of her many strangely named children. It is not their fault, and I have nothing against them, but the fact remains that Mr. and Mrs. Todd Palin chose to give their children some nontraditional names. In the America I know, people are named Crystal and Jane and Jennie and Melissa. But hey, America is a big place, and Alaska is a long way away from California, so I suppose it’s entirely possible that Mrs. Palin and I know two completely different Americas. In fact, I would say that it is more than possible, it is, in fact, downright likely.

It is also downright likely that not only did Palin write the post, but also that she, once again has no idea what she is talking about. I do not know the specifics of the health reform bill (that thing’s like 1200 pages and they’re still working on it!?!?!?!) but I am pretty sure that it is no going to lead to death marches and bodies piling up in the street because of bureaucratic interference. Just as I doubt other claims I’ve heard (not from Palin, but I would not be surprised if she mentioned something similar in her next communique) that Obama wants to kill my grandparents. If that were truly the case, he would just leave healthcare alone because that would all but sign granny and grampie’s death certificate.

No, I think the Mistress of the frozen Alaskan Frontier and ruler of the tundra, is once again speaking without thinking. Or rather, she is thinking, but not rationally. She operates on fear. On division. “The America I know” “real America” etc… and this rhetoric is perfectly divisive and timed. She just resigned, tensions are running high about this whole “nationalizing healthcare thing (and really what’s so wrong with nationalized healthcare, I live in the Czech Republic and while they do not have purely nationalized care, it is pretty darn close, and by that I mean I still have to pay a copay when I go to the doctor’s), and now she can show up and use whatever remaining political clout she has left to influence those enamoured with her. How she still has political clout or people enamoured with her is beyond me, but she does and she speaks their language of fear and violence and hate and division.

I doubt her comments will be enough to really disrupt the healthcare debate further, but that is not what matters. What matters is that Sarah is back, and I have a feeling that in the coming weeks/months/years she is going to give me plenty to write about. I will attempt to resist the temptation and keep my posts about her at a moderate lever, but I make no promises.

Ev, true, but I would also say that your kids names, while slightly unusual, are not altogether like Track and Trig and Bristol, but I will give that Willow and Piper are pretty solid, and pretty normal names.